My Kind of Zoo

Regenstein Center for African Apes

Lincoln Park Zoo was already renowned for its extraordinary collection of lowland gorillas when it opened the standard-setting Great Ape House in 1976. Now the tradition of innovation continues with the creation of a new facility that reflects the latest thinking in animal stewardship, visitor experience and the central roles of research and education.

The Regenstein Center for African Apes opened in July 2004 thanks to the extraordinary support of the Regenstein Foundation and additional generosity of Jonathan Kovler and the Kovler Family Foundation and the Women’s Board of Lincoln Park Zoo. The center is not only a remarkable habitat for the apes, but also houses the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes, a center for learning where scientists, students and visitors can learn more about how to best care for and protect these remarkable and endangered animals.

Behind the New Exhibit

The new Regenstein Center for African Apes welcomes Lincoln Park Zoo’s great apes home to a habitat offering double the space of the previous Great Ape House. The 13,600-square-foot habitat offers all of the apes access to the outdoors and re-creates their natural environments with trees, waterfalls, vines, fallen logs, natural light and soft mulch ground.

While the ape inhabitants are enjoying their new home, human researchers in an adjacent wing of the facility are hard at work in the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.  Designed to be an international research center, the Fisher Center invites the public to join the research team by contributing observations and collecting data.

Meet the Animals

If Lincoln Park Zoo is instantly associated with any one species, it is the gorilla. The zoo is home not only to one of the world’s outstanding collections of western lowland gorillas, but also to an internationally renowned breeding program. Since 1970 nearly 50 gorillas have been born at Lincoln Park Zoo. Among them: playful Tabibu, 160 pounds and growing, and the newest addition, a baby born to Buhati and Jojo on Sept. 27, 2004.

Providing Tabibu and her comrades with communities that more closely approximate how they would live in the wild is a top priority of the new Regenstein Center for African Apes. The center is home to two gorilla troops, each including a silverback male with females and their offspring. The number of chimpanzees housed at the zoo has been expanded to a more species-typical size and includes more males to provide for the male-male bond that scientists now know is central to chimpanzee society.